Conception of the meaning of the term education

A lot has been said about the nature of education and a lot remains to be said. Very few of us have any clear conception of the meaning of the term education. A few points may be clarified here.

Highlights

(a) Education is a process.

(b) Education is an integrating process.

(c) Helps to discover lasting values.

(d) Life-long process.

(e) Modification of behaviour.

(f) Education is life.

(a) Education is a process.

Any one act or single experience does not by itself make up education. Education is neither a mere serial aggregate of facts. It has an intrinsic continuity.

(b) Education is an integrating process

The function of education is to create integrated human beings. Only such human beings are intelligent and capable of solving individual and collective problems.

(c) Helps to discover lasting values

Education should help us to discover lasting values. It should help us to break down our national and social barriers.

(d) Life-long process

Education is a lifelong process. It includes all influences which act upon an individual during his passage from the cradle to the grave.

(e) Modification of behaviour

Education is the modification of behaviour. It enlarges human experience and so it produces some change in one’s behaviour which involves thinking, feeling and action.

(f) Education is life

John Dewey says that education is n preparation for life, it is life itself. Edward Thring says, “Education the transmission of life by the living to the living.’ A.N. Whitehead all supports this view when he says: “There is only one subject- matt of education and that is life in all its manifestation.” Prof. T. Ray moil: “It is really life that educates. One is educated n one’s vocation, by home life, by friendship, by marriage, by parenthood by recreation, by travel, and so forth.” In this sense it also include self-culture.

In the Report of International Commission on the Development Education (UNESCO), entitled Learning to Be, the of life-Ion education has been demand beings keep on learning training themselves throughout their lives, above all through the influence of the surrounding environment and through the experience which mould their behaviour, their conception life and the content of their kludge.”